“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

I have high hopes. 

This next few months have been earmarked for learning to organize my life. I have been trying for years but the implementation of this desire has more than fallen short. I am a high school teacher and my biggest fear is that I will lose one of my students assignments in the piles of papers. I like to think that I can become an example of what a person with AH/DH can accomplish for students with  and without AD/HD.

I have gotten my degree, I inspire my students, but my organisation is almost non-existent and this just will not do. 

My abismal organisation skills have bothered me my entire life but I have never tried to identify the cause. I have tried many times to get organized "once and for all" with sweeping changes and closet clearing mega cleans. These plans are inevitably short lived though I have adopted some habits that have lasted in the long term.

Such as,

I am proud to say that I am a successful ToDo lister.

Some years back I began using the ToDo list and have gotten progressively better at it.

It used to be that I would write a ToDo list, lose it, find it months later and be gripped by shame.

The entire list remained unToDone. After all this time.

However, now when I find a lost ToDo it is rare that I cannot, with great satisfaction, scratch off several  items. Occasionally the entire list is checked off one item at a time with great flourish and sense of accomplishment.

So progress has been made.

Also,

I have a calendar. I love it. 

It is a black, Moleskine masterpiece full of chicken scratches.

I buy the exact same one every year, or rather my Love puts it into my christmas stocking.

I have a crazy internal system within the coated cardboard covers that changes often and randomly, 

not unlike my mind. 

It is me holding on by my fingertips and I live in fear of losing grip.

But these are new times. 

I am looking at this in a new way.

I am on a mission to find answers outside of myself.

I have ordered these:

then my "research" lead me to this video:

The man in the video is Russell Barkley, the author of one of the books that I have ordered.
The video spoke to me, it kicked me in the heart as though he was speaking of my own experiences.
"Nearsighted in time...11th hour...organizing for the imminent future...everything is a crisis...know what to do but cant do what they know."

Every lesson I teach is the product of yesterday  Even if it is a lesson that I have taught a dozen times I have to re-plan it for every occasion. Re Write the lesson, Re plan the timeline, re print the hand outs...hell re make the hand outs from scratch after searching computers hard drives, USBs,  e-mail accounts and Dropbox, re Google the links ect. ect.
This infuriates me.
An educator's time is sacred.
The biggest challenge in being a teacher for me, hands down, is effective use of time.
Thus you will allow me a howl of frustration.
Howl.
So I have ordered these books but what if, like the author of one of them says, learning skills is useless because they wont be used?
Time will tell.